“Ugh… Note to self, stone floors are not the most comfortable of beds.”
Lyra rises slowly, stretching herself out even as she complains about the floor. Then, she takes a look around.
“So… the throne room? Huh. Woulda thought it would have been the Vault, where Celestia kept the five Elements she’d located. Musta… Hold on. Yeah, that would do it. Looks like the security system buggered itself on wild magic. Then tried to bite off more than it could chew, and broke apart. In any case, where’s the crater?”
She trots to one of the windows, peering out. “Ahh… Yep, that’s about what happens when you forget to draw enough power for the safeties to work properly. Aside from being trapped on the moon for a thousand years, of course.” She rolls her eyes. “Managed to toast my horn pretty good on the return journey, though. I’ll probably have to wait… Oh, more than a year, probably, before I can go back to full power. And in the meantime, the less I use it, the faster it recovers.” She sighs. “Okay then. Armor?” Her horn flashes briefly, golden sparks flying off the tip. “Ow! Um, check. Yeah, that was too far… I think I’ll avoid any magic expense for a week at least. Should be recovered enough by then to use small magics without causing further damage.”
She turns to trot out of the room. “So, now what? It’s been a thousand years and six days since the disaster… and since Luna returned six days ago, the Princesses probably believe me dead. Hmm… I might be able to turn that into an advantage. Certainly make a great rumors-of-my-death prank.” She chuckles to herself. “In any case, Ponyville should be my first destination. That town should have spawned at least nine hundred years ago.”
She trots down the front steps to the castle, glancing around. “Huh. A thousand years, and the castle’s all that’s left. Well, I hope Ponyville has a Sugarcube Corner- that was an amazing bakery. Speaking of which, I hope Celestia hasn’t changed the currency on us. And that inflation hasn’t gone too crazy.” She shudders. “I should still be able to touch into my storage pockets without popping my horn like popcorn.”
She crosses the bridge, and hits the woods, following the skinny little path.
She ignores the Timberwolves. They don’t attack her.
She ignores the Manticore. It doesn’t seem to realize she’s even there.
She smiles as she passes a cockatrice. She can feel her spell armor’s drain on her magic reserves; however, that drain doesn’t go through her horn, so no harm done- and the power required to maintain invisibility is almost less than zero when compared to her undamaged regeneration rate.
She’d planned on building this armor for the Royal Guard once she finished her self-sustaining thaumic fusion plant. Well, armor of similar capability; unfortunately, most ponies don’t have the raw thaumic capacity to operate fully thaumic armor like hers. Hence why the armor she did give them, around a year before her plant exploded in her face, contains orichalcum. The orichalcum serves not only as an easy anchor for permanent spellwork, but, with the appropriate enchantments, as an ambient power source. Not nearly as powerful as her magic, or that of the Princesses, but strong enough to serve its purpose.
… She’d infused the Princess’ armor with orichalcum as well, and made it a power source, because she knew that’s what they’d expected. Unlike the Royal Guard armor, she’d designed theirs to draw directly from their reserves if need be- and been able to build the enchantments to go beyond the active production of the orichalcum, and to work on more of a momentary basis, resulting in far tougher armor.
Not as tough as her all-spellwork armor, though. Even with an Alicorn’s reserves to work with, she hadn’t been able to fit the same level of protection into their armor as she’d been able to pack into her own, for one simple reason: She didn’t have to worry about the orichalcum interfering with the armor spellwork, so she had far more space to work with. And, she didn’t have to keep adding cutouts for power limiting or orichalcum-based power harvesting. Or even the reserve draw- she just put one of those at the heart of it, and it feeds the entire matrix with exactly what it needs… which is flat nothing when she’s not using it.
She reaches the edge of the woods and switches the invisibility off as she trots towards the town visible up ahead.
“Yes! I hope they’re as good as their predecessor. Or, even, better.” She grins, and pushes the door open. She’d found it: Sugarcube Corner.
A quick glance around the dining room reveals that this establishment is not only better established than the one she knew but, judging by the customers scattered about the tables, possessed of better cooks. She’d never been a very good cook herself; she’d tried, once, and somehow managed to set fire to a pot of water. Without using magic.
… Fire that had spread onto the marble ceiling.
Fortunately, her magic had been sufficient to snuff it out.
But bad cook or not, she’s always been able to appreciate good cooking. And, she’d witnessed a few street transactions on the way here- Celestia hasn’t changed the currency up on her. Meaning, her rather oversized stash from way back when is still valid.
She trots up to the counter.
The very pink cashier lets out a massive gasp, and vanishes into the back room.
She blinks. “Uh, hello?”
The pink mare reappears, stopping with that screeching noise that never fails to amuse her. Then, the pink mare spouts off something way too fast for her to hear straight.
She barely stops herself from going for her magic in time. She’d known a couple of fast-talkers back in the day- and for her, the easiest way to understand was to activate a quick perception spell. Well, technically, it’s a time manipulation spell, being designed to replay the hyperspeed oration back to her at a lower, understandable speed, in a tenth of a second or less. Unfortunately, it demands a lot of power. Not anything big enough to drain her reserves, no- but plenty big enough to make the damage to her horn permanent.
So she opts for the strategy she used before coming up with that spell: Pretend the high-speed vocalization never happened. It can annoy ponies, but more often than not, they brush over it.
Besides, what better place to start with familiarizing herself with the modern pony attitude?
She doesn’t even look at the menu. “Can I get a honeybun daisy sandwich and a chocolate ice cream parfait?”
The pink mare blinks. “Wait, you understood that?”
She smiles, and shakes her head. It must have ended with a request for her order.
“... Oh. Um, that’ll be seven bits.”
She blinks. Inflation must have gone backwards; the last time she ordered that very thing, it cost her almost thirty bits. Granted, that was a thousand years ago- but that means that the fifty bits she’d removed from her thaumic pocket are more than sufficient. She counts out twelve of them, stacking them on the counter in exchange for the food that the pink mare has somehow already finished. It smells divine- and that’s the first time she’s met anypony capable of cooking at warp one without a warp engine.
“Thank you,” she nods, transferring the platter to her back as she turns to select a table.
“Um, excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?”
The green unicorn looks up at Twilight, mouth full of sandwich, before glancing at the indicated seat- across from her- and shrugging.
“Uh, thanks?” Twilight mutters, taking the seat and placing her own food on the table in front of her. She glances up, and pauses, staring at the unicorn’s amused smile. “What?”
The smile only widens, until she finishes chewing that bite. “Oh, nothing. It’s just… you sound like I did, back in the day.”
“Wha-? Like what?”
She shrugs. “Unsure of how to handle yourself in public. Probably been spending too many hours studying?”
“But-!”
“And you’re about to tell me there’s no such thing as too many hours studying, aren’t you?”
Twilight’s ears droop. “Yeah. Applejack disagrees, of course, so… So she made me promise not to study for a whole day. And to repeat the exercise every week!” She sighs, and takes a bite of her sandwich.
The unicorn shrugs. “Well hey, at least it’s not as bad as it could be.”
“As it could be?” Twilight looks up. “How could it be worse?”
“Would it be worse of Princess Celestia herself banned you from all libraries on the planet forevermore?”
“What-! She wouldn’t-!”
“Of course she wouldn’t. But I think we can agree that it would be worse. I mean, imagine the pain of having to work through somepony that didn’t know what they were looking for, just to be able to get your hooves on the books you needed?”
Twilight blinks. “... Ouch.”
The unicorn shrugs. “In any case, if it’s going to be a friendship day, why not make it a good one? My name’s Lyra, what’s yours?” She holds out a hoof.
Twilight blinks. “Uh, I’m Twilight Sparkle. And, um…”
“No relation, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” Her ears droop. She’d have to look up Lyra Heartstrings once again- find out what she looked like. She does seem to remember something to that end in one of her books… Oh well, something for tomorrow. She can’t study today, or any other Tuesday, without breaking her promise.
Well, that was… informative, Lyra supposes, parting ways with Twilight Sparkle some six hours later.
What she’d learned had been enlightening… and disappointing. Back when she was a filly, and for five hundred years before that, pony society has basically stayed the same. As a matter of fact, it would have ended, if not for her.
Then she had her foalhood, and grew up. And, eventually, got stuck on the moon with Princess Luna.
And, disappointingly, nothing has changed since. Like she’d suspected when she saw how big the crater was, none of her blueprints had survived, save the ones she’d distributed already- but that steam train carried more than enough technology to advance Equestria by a landslide. Twilight had confirmed that they’re all by the original blueprint- and even took her to the tracks to watch one pass.
She’d listened to the gentle whine of the steam-powered electric generator hidden underneath the boiler and the hum of the electric air conditioners on the cars as it passed. Even spotted the heavy electrical cables dangling between the cars, right next to the pneumatic brake lines.
… yet Equestria doesn’t have electricity. Light is achieved by sunlight, torches, or thaumic lights, the last of which is usually in the form of a crystal enchanted to charge itself by day and discharge on demand- that is, an invention of Star Swirl the Bearded some fifteen hundred years ago.
The Royal Guard armor is the exact same stuff she made way back when- and nopony has ever heard of anything capable of scratching it… nor comparing to it. The art of the permanent enchantment remains lost to ponykind; the use of orichalcum as anything but a magic resistance booster is also absent.
The same is true for their weapons. Her swords and spears are practically worshipped for their ability to punch through any defense anypony has ever devised… except, of course, her Royal Guard armor. Which those spears and swords are specifically enchanted not to harm.
She can’t wait to start upending the status quo once again; what would Celestia think if she flew a fixed-wing aircraft – the Boeing 747-8 in particular – to Cloudsdale to watch the young fliers competition? It’s only the longest passenger fixed-wing ever built…
Landing it up there would be a tricky bit of spellwork, sure, but nothing she couldn’t handle. A few cloudwalking spells on the wheels, and some suitable spells to ensure that nothing- not even clouds- got sucked into the engines…
Unfortunately, she’d have to wait a while for that – any attempt to build even the wimpy fusion plants she used to run all her high-power constructs would wreck her horn right now.
And perhaps it’s time for her to find a student of her own, so she can spread her ingenuity across the pony nation- so they can keep going, continue advancing, after she eventually dies?
Then she feels it. Somepony is dumping raw magic directly into the magic field. An utterly useless, wasteful action, to most; to her, especially when working with an ambient-powered spell, it’s useful for causing a local thaumic overload.
Yet one that nopony even knows how to do.
Except for her. It’d been the first thing she’d figured out how to do, even before levitation. Given her power levels, it was an easy way to overwhelm and shatter other ponies’ spells.
She looks.
It’s a foal… Filly, to be specific. White coat, looks to be trying to use magic.
She watches the filly give up, apparently disheartened by the lack of a visible result.
She knows who her apprentice will be.